Haslam's finest hour in Cleveland unfolds ... in Canton

Monday

May 12, 2014 at 5:09 PM

Jimmy Haslam was candid and engaging during an informative speech at the Hall of fame Luncheon Club, two days after the draft.

Jimmy Haslam arrived late and stayed overtime.He deftly held the attention of the Hall of Fame Luncheon Club, which gave him mixed reviews (tough crowd whose hooey detector is state-of-the-art), but generally, I sensed, liked him.Haslam really seemed to get it that Browns fans want a plugged-in owner who obviously knows everything about the Browns, chapter and verse, to tell them as much of it as possible.He said a lot, at least a lot more than you most often hear from a coach, a GM or an owner. We worked the last several hours on an expanded story that was due up on cantonrep.com.Usually, Luncheon Club speeches start at about 12:15 p.m. and break up at 1. Haslam got rolling about 12:25 and stayed until 1:15. Not once did he sound as if he wished he were someplace else, even though he had left a big event, the annual Browns charity golf outing, to address the club (find story here).

• • •He laughed right along with everyone else’s laughter and conveyed a sense of “customer is king” throughout. It was, perhaps, his finest public moment as Browns owner.There was enough to break out some of the extra points for you here on Fresh Brownies.So then ...

• • •• Haslam said Ray Farmer’s crew had a draft board that included only 162 players. The interesting thing about that: The draft covered 256 players.But then, by the time farmer traded his way down from 10 to six picks, the final Browns pick was CB Pierre Desir at No. 127.• The arrival of Johnny Football could lead to Monday Night Football, some day.Haslam: “Let’s face it. We all take it personally if we only have one 4 o’clock game and one Thursday night game. When I was with that other team 100 miles down the road (as minority owner of the Steelers), we played most of our games at 4 o’clock or on Sunday night or on Monday night. “But that’s our fault, right? It’s a direct reflection of how well we play. When you’re 4-12, you’ve got to fix that. When we’re better, we’ll play at a different time.”• Might Cleveland host a Super Bowl some day?Haslam: “I’m worried about getting us to the Super Bowl.”• Our good friend “Cadillac” asked from the back of the room if Haslam might identity his top three goals. Not a way he has really thought about it, Haslam said, humoring our friend nonetheless:“First, be competitive in our division. If you’re competitive in our division, you’re probably going to have a good team.”“Second, we want to improve our record. (declined to say)“Three, become the kind of football team coach Pettine wants., which is tough, hard-nosed, disciplined, good on defense, run the ball, pass when necessary.”• An owner’s draft overview:“We picked a quarterback, then we picked a guard, OK, because we’re going to run the ball. In this kind of weather and division, you have to be able to do that. “Then we picked a linebacker who can cover tight ends and running backs. Then we picked a running back. Then we picked another cornerback. We got two cornerbacks, we got a linebacker, we got and a guard. We got a quarterback and we got a running back. AND we got three picks for next year including a first rounder.“Aside from the quarterback, we think we added five quality players, four of whom have a really good chance of starting (in 2014).”• Haslam’s p.r. people and maybe the voice in his head are telling him don, don’t, don’t make bold predictions. He isn’t going there. He even annoys some people went he says teams simply don’t go from 4-12 next year to 12-4 the next.(Technically, that’s not what the Chiefs did in jumping from 2-14 to 11-5, but ...)Anyway, here’s about as much as Halsam was will to say about a 2014 jump;“I think if you take these (drafted) guys along with the free agents we signed, Whitner, Dansby, Hawkins, etc. ... I think we’ve transformed our football team in a pretty substantial way.“Talk is cheap. We say that all the time in Berea. We’ll know a lot more after we tee it up at Pittsburgh.”• Haslam said he liked that Mike Pettine was fired up rather than bummed about opening at PIT.Haslam: “I think he is a Cleveland kind of guy ... a northeastern Ohio kind of guy might be a better way to say that.“First off he’s a very smart man. He was an economics major at the University of Virginia. Second, and if you just look at his picture, he’s a tough guy. It’s not just his look. He IS a tough guy. Third, he grew up in football. (Goes into dad’s coaching history.) I think we got a really good coach.”• Haslam had a four-hour meeting Monday with Pettine, Farmer and Farmer’s top assistant, Bill Kuharich. He made it sound as if they were out of bed before you were.“We went through the entire draft, not who we picked, but the entire process ... what we can do better?”• Did we mention a “customer is king” approach?Haslam: “Our fan support has to be the best in the country. Of all the NFL markets ... take percentage of TVs tuned into the draft. What do you think was No. 1? Cleveland, Ohio.”• • •Fresh Brownie bites at www.twitter.com/sdoerschukREP